I hope you like old cards, because our winners are all from a long, long time ago in a set far, far away.
Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll tell you about the Magic: the Gathering cards that'll be the talk of the town tonight! Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Discord.
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Check out our other great content from this week.
Cards Rising in the Post-Nadu Modern by Corey Williams
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Onto the Weekly Winners!
This older enchantment from Urza's Destiny turns your other non-Aura enchantments into creatures whose base power and toughness are equal to their mana value. Older cards that haven't been reprinted tend to quickly spike when something is up, especially with cards that are on the Reserved List, since we know it will never be reprinted again. Opalescence is one of those cards.
The reason for the spike is because of the Duskmourn: House of Horror previews that are currently happening. As we know, the set contains several new Leylines, as well as a reprint. Leylines, like Leyline of Transformation, can be put onto the battlefield as a pre-game action when it's in your opening hand.
In the past Opalescence was occassionally played in Legacy when the first Leylines were printed. With a few Leylines in play at the start of a game and Serra's Sanctum you could play Opalescence on Turn 1 and have several 4/4 creatures. With the new Leylines, people may speculate that this can become a strategy again, though it's probably just speculation at this point.
In Duskmourn we also see the "Enduring" enchantment creatures, like Enduring Innocence. These creatures will come back as enchantments when they die, and with Opalescence in play, it will once again be a creature and thus continue to come back when it dies. A whole cycle of these Enduring enchantment creatures have been previewed and all work pretty well with this old enchantment.
There's another secret reason that could have helped a little bit with the price increase on Opalescence, but you'll have to read on a little bit longer to find it!
| Opalescence | | |
| Leyline of the Void | | |
| Leyline of Hope | | |
| Enduring Innocence | | |
#2 Fastbond $48.98 (+140%)
Fastbond is another card from the Reserved List, and thus hasn't been reprinted since Revised Edition. For you get to play as many lands as you like during your turn, but Fastbond will do one damage to you for each land beyond the first. This card isn't legal in most formats due to being old, and is banned in Legacy and Commander. The only format it's legal in is Vintage, but even there it doesn't see play.
So why is this card going up if you can't play it anywhere? Well, it's the prospect of it seeing play somewhere. Topdeck.gg has announced that they're considering unbanning some cards in their cEDH tournaments to test with them. Not only that, but they've proposed to have a rules committee that's separate from the Commander RC. This "cEDH Rules Committee" feels that while cEDH and Commander are very similar, there are also differences, and that these differences should be reflected in separate ban lists.
Because of the speculation on this, we already see prices moving, because unbannings in this spin-off cEDH format could lead to a higher demand. Other unbannings that they announced to be considering are Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Gifts Ungiven, Primeval Titan, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, and Coalition Victory. Besides that they're considering banning Rhystic Study. When we look at the Interests of last week, we indeed see Leovold, Emissary of Trest high up there as well!
| Fastbond | | |
| Fastbond | | |
| Fastbond | | |
| Leovold, Emissary of Trest | | |
| Gifts Ungiven | | |
And to close it all off we have another old card! This time it's a rare from Nemesis, but unlike the other winners, this one isn't on the Reserved List. However, it hasn't been reprinted, which means it's 24 years old now. Parallax Tide has the Fading ability, which limits the number of turns it stays on the battlefield. During each of its controller's upkeeps, that player removes one fade counter from the permanent. If the player cannot remove a fade counter, they must sacrifice the permanent.
Parallax Tide sees play in Premodern Parallax Replenish decks that have been doing well lately. Since the deck plays four copies, and there's a relatively low supply, the price is moving up. The deck wants to get many enchantments into the graveyard and get them back with Replenish. But we see another card four times in this decklist that seems pretty familiar! Opalescence is also played four times in this archetype, which is contributing to its price increase.
Cheap Pickups
Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past seven years. Many cards were even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.
Kambal, Profiteering Mayor has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.
| Kambal, Profiteering Mayor | | |
| Karn Liberated | | |
| Beledros Witherbloom | | |
